On the plus side, sir, we love the anecdotes:
Raleigh’s puddle, Drake’s drum.
That seasick captain and his trial by letters.
You never shoot us down or have us write the date out
in the margin. Dates, you say, are strictly historical.
But since you’re a stickler for observation, sir,
there’s something we’ve detected lately:
the way you drift at the whiteboard, penless,
..................starboard from centre
spinning your Age of Exploration globe until it slows to the brink of inertia
before resting a palm on its surface
and holding there, quite still,
our bearded empress Gloriana.
That steely stare you’ve formulated,
a feeble substitute for rhetoric;
a breastplate of sorts, your Tilbury steed
and cavalcade of auburn hair
resplendent under diadem.
In short, sir, we're concerned
you’re becoming that teacher you talk about,
the one from Waterland who lectured his classes
not in history, not strictly, but in identity,
the tension between silt and sea
between sanity and legacy.
That one morning you’ll enter, slapdash,
slightly late, to simply spin and spin
until the globe dizzies on its axis.
In short, sir, we do not buy it.
